QUOTE (Delphi @ Jul 29 2010, 03:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not the greatest at ship balancing, so when I finally get all the ships in the game assembled I think I'll quickly code a micro-universe where you can use missions to call in generic ships to fight, and the entire shipyard is open for testing. I'll get your opinions on what works and what doesn't; what ships are overpowered and which ones are made of tin foil.

That idea = Awesome

I've found that you can give yourself escorts via missions, though I suppose that if money is no object, then it's not a big deal to just hire them. I guess you could use that to test your flet and dude resources for balance.

Anyway, I'd recommend putting, in your micro-universe, a few systems (not just one), such that each race's special tech is on that race's planets, their ships orbit that planets (along with whatever other ships may visit them) - basically so that you can test different planet load outs. Things like "outpost," "colony," "shipyard..." test the different planet types you're likely to use and the different dudes that those planets are likely to have against mission or hired escorts or enemy fleets, and if you end up hated at that planet you can learn how it is to be a player in various ships against such a planet.

Then make one planet in the middle where everything is available and there is a government that pays the testing player tribute and everything is discounted 100%. This way, we can test the government-standard dudes, pirates, independents, how they react normally, and how your different planet-types work in different situations, along with prices and ship balancing.

And make it so that money is still something we need to get to an extent, by trading or doing simple (passengers? freight?) missions in such a way that we have an idea of how much work it takes to buy the ships in-game (though accelerated greatly), so we can test how valuable a ship really is and give you good feedback.

Now, if you do that correctly, we can entertain ourselves for hours balancing your balance able stuff, while you code missions, the larger galaxy, and generally fix things up nicely.

----
Something you'll need to make very clear is to what end you're looking to get- if a ship is supposed to dominate everything (and you haven't written the descs) then write that in the description. If we're looking at a pay scale on the level of EVC - where the most expensive ship was 20 million credits and the largest freighter you could buy hauled 240 tons, and thus it took a long time to save up for ships but they were, IMO, well balanced for the cost -or- if we're looking at something like EVN, where it seems like the most expensive ships don't cost that much with the Leviathan holding 4,000 tons and repaying itself every cargo run, and the most expensive ships in the game only cost 10 million(excepting the kestrel).

Anyway, that stuff looks good. Your texture doesn't look too complicated and turned out well, I'll have to do something like that for general coverage if I'm making any ships.

QUOTE (Meaker VI @ Jul 29 2010, 11:17 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That idea = Awesome

I've found that you can give yourself escorts via missions, though I suppose that if money is no object, then it's not a big deal to just hire them. I guess you could use that to test your flet and dude resources for balance.

Anyway, I'd recommend putting, in your micro-universe, a few systems (not just one), such that each race's special tech is on that race's planets, their ships orbit that planets (along with whatever other ships may visit them) - basically so that you can test different planet load outs. Things like "outpost," "colony," "shipyard..." test the different planet types you're likely to use and the different dudes that those planets are likely to have against mission or hired escorts or enemy fleets, and if you end up hated at that planet you can learn how it is to be a player in various ships against such a planet.

Then make one planet in the middle where everything is available and there is a government that pays the testing player tribute and everything is discounted 100%. This way, we can test the government-standard dudes, pirates, independents, how they react normally, and how your different planet-types work in different situations, along with prices and ship balancing.

And make it so that money is still something we need to get to an extent, by trading or doing simple (passengers? freight?) missions in such a way that we have an idea of how much work it takes to buy the ships in-game (though accelerated greatly), so we can test how valuable a ship really is and give you good feedback.

Now, if you do that correctly, we can entertain ourselves for hours balancing your balance able stuff, while you code missions, the larger galaxy, and generally fix things up nicely.

----
Something you'll need to make very clear is to what end you're looking to get- if a ship is supposed to dominate everything (and you haven't written the descs) then write that in the description. If we're looking at a pay scale on the level of EVC - where the most expensive ship was 20 million credits and the largest freighter you could buy hauled 240 tons, and thus it took a long time to save up for ships but they were, IMO, well balanced for the cost -or- if we're looking at something like EVN, where it seems like the most expensive ships don't cost that much with the Leviathan holding 4,000 tons and repaying itself every cargo run, and the most expensive ships in the game only cost 10 million(excepting the kestrel).

Anyway, that stuff looks good. Your texture doesn't look too complicated and turned out well, I'll have to do something like that for general coverage if I'm making any ships.

Everything he just said here agrees with me. That would be an excellent idea I think! Oh please do it!

Itty bitty ship! Teehee!

The Athena is currently being rendered. It's nice that SketchUp 7 lets me create such high-detail models, but now it means that Bryce takes HOURS to render them. 1 hour, 57 minutes remaining.

Also, don't worry about the sprite size. I'm actually rendering it at double. I grabbed a between-render screenshot of one completed frame and photoshopped it to see how the end result might look.

That's tiny? It's bigger than the Fed Carrier sprite in EVN. I can't wait to see what you call big!

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 29 2010, 05:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's tiny? It's bigger than the Fed Carrier sprite in EVN. I can't wait to see what you call big!

Maybe that Alexandria ship? That was rather large.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 29 2010, 04:38 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's tiny? It's bigger than the Fed Carrier sprite in EVN. I can't wait to see what you call big!

I'll probably end up doing some adjusting to downscale a bunch of the sprites, but for the time being I think it's safe to say that this plug will not be designed with 1024 x 768 monitors in mind. I mean seriously, my laptop is four years old and yet has a resolution of 1440 x 900.

I conducted a poll a while back, and the majority (save for one person) said they've got monitors of at least that resolution. Any different (smaller) monitor sizes for you guys?

QUOTE (EKHawkman @ Jul 29 2010, 03:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Maybe that Alexandria ship? That was rather large.

That craft, at the very least, would need to be at least 400x400 (though preferably bigger) to retain its awesomeness. The last photo Delphi depicted of it, it seemed a bit smaller than the Raven.

Delphi, do it, nao.

also, I have found that EV looks pretty awesome with larger planet sprites as well. I hope you choose to make more of a scale difference.

Regarding screen resolutions, my 13" MacBook has a 1280x800 resolution. However, I still prefer large graphics, so go ahead and make 'em big anyway!

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 29 July 2010 - 06:45 PM

QUOTE (Delphi @ Jul 28 2010, 10:28 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not the greatest at ship balancing, so when I finally get all the ships in the game assembled I think I'll quickly code a micro-universe where you can use missions to call in generic ships to fight, and the entire shipyard is open for testing. I'll get your opinions on what works and what doesn't; what ships are overpowered and which ones are made of tin foil.

I'd gladly help out, though I'm currently trying to retrieve my registration code. Old computer that had EV died years back and it was in my brother's name. He's working on it but has yet to get a response. Hopefully it'll be resolved by the time its released.

"Too much frigates!!!!11"

That's a lot of frames, Delphi. Does the thing turn really slowly or do just want really smooth movement? Add in the level of detail and that one sprite might end up being 500kb on its own, maybe more.

Most of the ships are 72 frames, for smoothness. The largest ones will even be a little bit bigger. Don't worry, the Athena is actually smaller. I pretty much finalized the sprite sheet just a few minutes ago, and now it's being tested in Nova.

Is this a little better for screen size?

Huh. I thought I was clear. I meant before I liked it better big. You can do what you want (it is your TC after all) but I really wouldn't mind would prefer big, honking, beautiful sprites. Like, 200x200 for smallish ships. Seriously.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 29 2010, 11:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Huh. I thought I was clear. I meant before I liked it better big. You can do what you want (it is your TC after all) but I really wouldn't mind would prefer big, honking, beautiful sprites. Like, 200x200 for smallish ships. Seriously.

True, but if I make the small ships small, and then I make the absolutely massive ships, well, absolutely massive, it'll all look so much more daunting in terms of scale, when you fly your pithy little Athena over the gigantic hull of a Cyphus battlecruiser.

For instance, here's me in my Monolith with a double Athena escort, orbiting Tirach.

The Monolith is just a standard workhorse cruiser, meaning that there are many much grander and larger than it, yet it still takes up a fair amount of real estate on the screen, dwarfing the moderately-sized Athena Frigate. Once I put together the Mars and Neptune corvettes, the effectiveness of a wide range of ship scales should become really evident and beautiful, and scary to players in small ships.

So I'm hoping, at least. I'm fortunate enough that I never render a spin animation smaller than 300 x 300, so I've always got some room to work within if I need to resize sprites.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 30 July 2010 - 01:38 PM

At the risk of turning this into an ongoing dialog, I'm pretty sure we're both missing something here. When I mentioned smallish ships being 200x200, I meant each individual frame, not the entire sheet of frames as I believe you thought I meant.

Also, when you said you never render a spin animation smaller than 300x300, I'm pretty sure you meant the entire sheet of frames is never smaller than 300x300 given your Athena isn't much bigger than an IDA, a 100x100 frame sprite. Again, not what I meant.

In my case, I missed exactly what it was you missed. So, to be absolutely clear, I'm speaking in terms of each individual frame size, not the frame sheet, when I say I'd like to see sizes around 200x200 for the smallest player-usable ship... if you're willing to make stuff that big.

Lastly, a curse upon TinyPic for performing maintenance at this time. How dare they prevent us from seeing your beautiful work, even if it is unintentional! That said, how are they able to keep showing your previous images but not the new ones? :huh:

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jul 29 2010, 11:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

At the risk of turning this into an ongoing dialog, I'm pretty sure we're both missing something here. When I mentioned smallish ships being 200x200, I meant each individual frame...

I was reading a topic recently where they discussed possible sizes for sprites, and I believe they were implying that the engine choked on ship sprites much larger than 300px, and all the editors have problems with large sprites. That said, I'd be happy having a few ships rendered at or as-near-as-possible in the 300-500px range, and having most of the playable ships at standard scales (32px, 48px, 64px, 96px, 128...).

1.5 hours sounds way too long for a render. I've rendered some of my ships at 96-ish px completely (all frames, glow, masks) in under 10 minutes. I'll see what it takes for a larger ship (physically larger, not render-larger), since I'm having trouble getting it to load into my scene right now...
Part of your issue might actually be the complexity of your texture, and as cool as it looks you might get more mileage using it for just coloring or just bump. I've been running my renders with shaders only, and though I'm working on improving that a little bit I don't feel that they'd look bad run that way.

This post has been edited by Meaker VI : 30 July 2010 - 10:30 AM

The engine starts choking on PICTs 2000x2000 in size, and the max size for ships is in the 96x96 range. Seriously, even the Raven in the stock scenario is oversized.

You guys have some wussy computers. My MacBook runs fine with large graphics, even SFA's massive Dyson Sphere, red giant, and Planet Killer sprites. The Dyson Sphere sprite is 550x550 pixels, the red giant sprite is 600x600 pixels, and the Planet Killer is 600x480 pixels. You really mean to say that the Raven is big enough it can cause problems for EVN? My first sentence was is jest, but the rest of my post here is serious. I just don't see large graphics being a problem.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 30 July 2010 - 12:29 PM

I made a functioning 600x600 ship sprite once, so I'm not sure where you're getting these figures, guys.